


Fine Orlesian Crafts

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: First and Commander: Namira Lavellan x Cullen Rutherford [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Second Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Namira Lavellan and Cullen get to know each other, while discovering the joys of fine Orlesian crafts direct from Val Royeaux.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fine Orlesian Crafts

Namira Lavellan was… distracted.  Yes.  That was the word for it.

It wasn’t her fault, she reasoned.  Anyone would be distracted after what had happened yesterday.  Yesterday she had screwed up her courage and said, “Do you mind if we speak in private?”  And the tall shem with the smile that sometimes snuck up on him had nodded yes, nearly too flustered to speak.

She still couldn’t believe it.  The weeks of watching him too closely, thrilling when their hands accidentally brushed at the war table, finding excuses to meet him in the garden and on the ramparts… she had hoped he looked too often her direction, that she wasn’t imaging the pinkness to his cheeks when she grinned at him.  She couldn’t explain it, but she had feelings for Cullen.  And it seemed he had feelings for her.

She smiled to herself in the middle of Leliana and Josephine’s debriefing, remembering the way he’d felt.  His mouth on hers, strong hands at her hips, how he had pressed into her.  Her pulse quickened.  It had been years since she had really attempted to flirt with anyone in her clan, and it had never gone very far.  She suddenly understood what, exactly, the big deal was, why the hunters always gossiped so about their partners.  It was  _exciting_!

“Inquisitor?” Leliana murmured, and Namira jumped, rudely interrupted from thinking about Cullen’s breath soft against her cheeks.  

“Er… what did I miss?” Namira asked.  She attempted to look serious and engaged.  “Sorry, my mind was wandering.”

“Was it now?” Leliana asked with a sly arch of her brow.  “Be that as it may, Josephine has some news for you.”

“There are a number of Orlesian merchants in Val Royeux eager to have our business, Inquisitor,” said Josephine.  “They have sent over samples of some of their wares.  I’ll make certain they are delivered to your quarters for your perusal.  Let me know if you wish to place orders or utilize any particular merchants.”

“Thank you, Josephine,” and Namira slipped back into daydreaming.  Cullen  _did_ have the loveliest eyes, the perfect shade of hazel, and the way they had gazed at her, half-lidded and tender and hopeful –

“Inquisitor?”

“Right, right, please, continue –”

***

Namira paced in her quarters, hoping to hear a knock at her door.  After yesterday’s adventure on the ramparts, she was craving more time with him, but every time she had gone by Cullen’s office, she had laid her ear against the door and heard him talking to his recruits.  Each time she had scampered away, frustrated and hoping no one had seen her mooning about.  At last she had given up and sent a messenger with a rolled scroll for Cullen.  Perhaps an official summons could give him an excuse to break away…

_Commander Cullen, I am afraid you are needed on urgent business of a most private nature.  Please stop by my quarters for a thorough debriefing at your earliest convenience._

_(It will mostly consist of kissing you furiously, if you’re amenable to that sort of thing, because I have been thinking about you and your mouth **all day**.)_

_(…Did I say that?  I did.  Kissing would be good.  Great even.  I think you would agree.)_

_Do hurry, Commander._

_Inquisitor Lavellan_

It was, she reflected, perhaps not her most eloquent missive.

She tapped her bare feet against the stone floor, impatient.  She decided to focus on the Orlesian imports Josephine had had delivered, hoping they would provide a distraction.  There was a medium crate pushed against the wall, its lid ajar.  There was also a handsome set of two wicker chairs arranged by the balcony, wrought in delicate, arching patterns twisting and twining around the arms and legs of the chairs.  They reminded her  of halla horns, and she had to admit they were pretty, even if they seemed insubstantial.  She bent down, running her hand alongside the leg of the closest chair.

Before she could open the crate holding the rest of the imports, there came the hoped-for knock at the door.  She sprang back to her feet, nearly running down the stairs and to the door.  She slowed herself down before she actually ran into it, and forced herself to stand still.  

Namira cleared her throat.  “Who is it?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded calm instead of out of breath.

A nervous voice on the other side answered, “It’s, ah, Commander Cullen.”

Namira stifled a squeal of excitement.  Oh, Creators, she _was_ taken with him, wasn’t she?  She flung the door open and tried to look serious, lowering her brows and stretching her mouth into a firm straight line.  “Thank goodness you’re here, Commander.  That urgent business won’t solve itself.  Come in, come in.”

He looked at her in confusion, lifting one hand to rub the back of his neck as she had noticed he did whenever something awkward arose.  “Wait, am I here on Inquisition business, or –”

She reached out and grabbed him around the wrist, hauling him in.  “Oh get _in_  here already, Cullen!”  She slammed the door behind him, giggling.

“I see,” Cullen said, smiling down at her.  She felt far too warm, and her stomach swooped deliciously.  “Because your note was rather… personal.”  His smile was crooked and the scar on his lip looked whiter than ever, and before he could lean down, she stood up on tiptoe, laid her hands on his cheeks, and pulled him down into a kiss.  

Namira closed her eyes, leaning into him as he embraced her.  How was his mouth  _so_  delightful?  His stubble brushed against her cheeks, soft and scratchy both, and she let out a small sigh between kisses.  She wanted to memorize every part of him.  There was the scent of soap mixed with leather and fur, the weight of his arms around her, the warmth of his mouth, the tantalizing play of his tongue slipping softly between her open lips.  He was so new and so different, and she loved it.

At last she broke apart for air, laughing.  “Sorry, but that felt really nice,” she teased, repeating his words from the ramparts back to him.

Cullen’s eyes crinkled in a smile.  “Poke fun if you like –”

“I do like –”

“But did it occur to you I was so overwhelmed by your beauty yesterday it was a wonder I could speak at all?”  He reached up with one hand, traced the line of her cheek and jaw with his knuckles, and he gave her a look that made her tremble.

“All right, all right,” Namira said, “you’re excused for having gone all stammering.”  She gazed steadily at him.  “You really think I’m beautiful?”  It was something she had never quite considered before.  She knew she was not homely, but beautiful?

He kissed her quickly, fumblingly, on the cheek.  It was somehow just as intimate as the breathless kisses of a moment ago.  “I can’t keep my eyes off you,” he said, “and that’s the truth.”

She could feel the blush all the way in the tips of her ears.  “Well,” she said, dropping her eyes and staring absurdly at her toes, “you’re very handsome yourself, you know.  So – I expect we’re even.”  She looked back at him, feeling as if she wasn’t doing this quite right but that it was all right anyway.  She liked it.

“If you insist,” Cullen said, almost shy.  It never ceased to amaze her how he could vacillate so quickly between confident and clumsy, commanding and bashful.  Then again she suspected she was only barely winning that contest; she was the Inquisitor, wasn’t she, with the power of the Fade crackling in her hand and magic in her veins, and yet it was easier sometimes to look at her wiggling toes than into the unfairly handsome face of the man in front of her.  She supposed she couldn’t exactly throw stones.

“Come on in properly, then,” she said.  “Unless you want to stand in the doorway kissing.”

“It is tempting, I admit,” said Cullen, appearing to give the matter great thought.  His teeth pulled at the edge of his bottom lip, and his brows rose towards his hairline with the weight of his consideration.  He nodded.  “But you’re right.  There are all manners of other places in which to kiss you.”

“Precisely,” said Namira grandly.  “Come with me, Commander.”  She reached out her hand.

“As you wish, Inquisitor.”  He took her hand in his, their fingers lacing together as she fairly skipped up the stairs.  Cullen was less than graceful on the stairs behind her – he walked like a soldier, and what was more, he was human – but she liked the way his larger hand fit with hers.

She led him to the top of the stairs, and he whistled slightly under his breath.  She remembered how intimidated she had been by the size of her quarters initially, though she had been grateful for the balcony opening directly onto the mountains in the distance.  It was her favorite place to sit when things became altogether too real and overwhelming.  

“It does have quite the view,” said Namira.

“I agree,” said Cullen, but when she glanced back at him, he was looking back at her and ignoring the mountains entirely, his expression soft and earnest.

“Even  _I_  know that’s one of the oldest lines in the book,” said Namira, chuckling.  “I’ll admit it’s nice to hear regardless.”

Cullen cleared his throat.  “It wasn’t a – a _line_  – I was only saying what came to mind –”

“Relax, Cullen,” said Namira.  She leaned against him, slipping his arm over her shoulders.  “I’m only joking to try and diffuse the tension of having a kind and handsome and valiant man alone with me, because if I don’t, I’ll be terribly nervous.”  A laugh escaped her.  “See?  All nerves.  Being around you makes them go all jangly.”

“I think I know the feeling,” he said, his arm curling so that his hand rested on her waist.  “Maker’s breath, but I still can’t believe that I’m here with you right now.  Like this.  With everything you’re facing, I never thought you’d want to – with me –”

“Well, I do,” said Namira brightly.  She looked around the room, wondering what they should do.  They could sit on the bed, but the idea seized her with a massive fluttery, anxious feeling.  That was maybe a little  _too_  exciting just yet.  The bed was far too prone to errors of interpretation, and she cast about for somewhere a little less charged to sit.

She spotted the Orlesian chairs.  “Care to test these out with me?” she asked.  “Josephine said they were shipped in from Orlais.”

“Did she, now,” Cullen said.  “Well, all right, but they look rather flimsy to me.  Typical Orlesian craftsmanship, all style, no substance…”  But he obediently followed her over to them.  They sat across from each other, both of them looking every which way, averting their gaze more frequently than not.  Namira almost laughed again.  Those nerves!  They made her jumpy and eager and anxious and glad, all in a most confusing jumble.  

“It’s not the most comfortable seat,” said Cullen, breaking the silence that had sprung up on them.  He shifted in his chair, trying to find a good position, but he could not seem to find one.  

Namira was having a similar struggle.  The wicker wasn’t soft or supportive, and the chair arms were too thin to really contemplate resting one’s arms on them.  The wicker feet were stable, but there was an unpleasant threat that one could be stabbed in the back at any time, and the whole piece of furniture felt like an exercise in the old adage  _Could you? Yes.  Should you?  Well…._

“I thought they  _looked_  rather nice,” said Namira.  “The pattern reminds me of halla horns.  I miss the halla, even if it wasn’t my duty to tend them.”

“Would you like us to see if we could obtain some?” asked Cullen.  “It could be done, I’m certain.”  He shifted again, ending up half-slumped in his chair with his great long legs stretched out before him.  She was fascinated with how much taller he was than anyone in her clan.  How did he possess so much leg?

She thought back to his question.  “It wouldn’t be the same,” said Namira, shaking her head.  “Halla belong in herds, either free with each other or with the Dalish.  There isn’t enough room here for them to roam, and not enough people who would know how to handle them.  Master Dennet I think would do admirably, but halla really flourish when the whole clan is there.”  She smiled fondly, remembering the way the animals slipped gracefully through the camp, as much a part of the landscape as the trees and the sky.

“There’s so much I’d like to know about you,” said Cullen thoughtfully.  “There are a great many differences between us.”

“I want to know more about you, too.  But we have at least a few similarities,” said Namira.  She tried to straighten up and was poked in the back for her efforts.  She grimaced.  “There’s the Inquisition, of course.  Saving the world, repairing the Veil, fighting mad templars and crazed Venatori.  And we both want to grind Corypheus into a fine powder, so there’s that.”

“There is that indeed,” Cullen said, laughing.  “And along those lines, I dare say we both make terrible jokes.”

“My jokes are not terrible,” Namira protested.  “At least, not  _all_  the time.”

“If that is what you care to believe,” said Cullen fondly.  “But it’s one of the things that first drew me to you.  You’ve always been so unabashed.  Even when another person might be embarrassed, you don’t seem to mind.”  He reconsidered, then amended, “…though when you are embarrassed, you do blush beautifully.  It makes your freckles stand out, and your tattoos.”

“Vallaslin,” said Namira automatically.    

“Forgive me,” Cullen said.  “I had seen the word written before, but I did not want to make a fool out of myself by mispronouncing it.  Is that the way you say it?” he asked.  He tried it out, the word sounding odd with his Fereldan accent.  “ _Vallaslin_.  It’s a beautiful word, though I don’t do it justice.”

“You did fine,” Namira said.  Elvish words in the mouth of a shem.  It made her squirm with its unfamiliarity, but it also made her feel pleased that he was trying it for her.  Did she  _expect_  him to learn Elvish?  No, not necessarily – but she knew enough about him to suspect it would bother him _not_  to learn it.  

She tilted her head, looking at him, deciding to think more closely on that later.  Maybe, if he wanted to learn, she could teach him.

“But at any rate,” she said, “you’re one to talk about blushing!  Don’t think I’ve not noticed.  You nearly looked scalded yesterday when I asked you to talk with me in private.”

“That’s not – it isn’t –”

“It is  _absolutely_  true.”

Cullen huffed.  “Now you’ve hurt my feelings,” he said, trying to keep a straight face and only marginally succeeding.

“Perhaps I need to make it up to you, then,” said Namira, standing up from her uncomfortable wicker chair.  Cullen made to join her, but before he could do more than sit up straight, Namira boldly plonked down on his lap.

“Oh!” he said, surprised, but wrapped his arms around her as if it was second nature.  She curled up in his lap, thrilled to feel him so close.  Ah.  This was better.  And with his armor, he wouldn’t even mind the pokey wicker that would otherwise be sure to stab him, especially with their combined weights on the chair.

Their faces were mere inches apart.  She drank in the sight of him, a few faint freckles across the bridge of his nose, the way his scar shyly crossed the border between cheek and lip, the fine wrinkles at the edges of his eyes.  Her heart thudded, and she felt it was a wonder he did not hear it.

“I – this is nice,” said Namira.  “Wait, no, not just nice.  Really nice.  Neat?  I don’t know.  I like it, sitting with you like this, and I like  _you_ , Cullen.”  She rested her head against his shoulder, and it felt right.  “I’m… truly glad you’re here.”

“Likewise,” said Cullen softly.  There was a small movement in his lap, and she glanced down to see him pulling off his gloves.  He tossed them down to the floor, and he reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  His fingers brushed against the pointed tip, and at first he pulled away until she reached up and directed his hand back to her ear.

“It’s all right,” she said.  “You can investigate.”  She felt almost shy herself.  “I’ll be honest, I’ve been curious about yours, too.  They’re so  _short_.  And round!  How does that work?  I’ve always been puzzled by it.  How do you hear anything behind you, if you can’t move them?”  She demonstrated, the muscles at the base of her ears rotating them slightly backward.  The movements of elven ears were subtle, it was true, but she had not realized how intrinsic they were until she had spent more time with humans.  Their flat ears never moved, not even slightly, and she had found it almost disconcerting at first.

“I don’t know?  I mean, they’ve always been that way, I have never had occasion to think about it before,” said Cullen, clearly befuddled.  “But you’re the first elf I’ve spent any time with as a – a friend.”

She smirked.  “I hope you consider me more than a friend at this point.”

“Yes, well, I expect I do,” he said, smiling tenderly at her.  “Your ears are lovely.  So is the rest of you.”  His fingertips were soft and delicate tracing the edge of her ear.  She reached up, felt the way his ear differed, the smooth roundness of the upper edge, how surprisingly short it was.  As she investigated she splayed her fingers and moved up slightly until she could run her hand through his hair.  She shivered with pleasure at the action.  Creators, but his hair was so  _soft_ , and the gentle waves in it were great fun to comb through with her fingers.  

“Does it bother you?” she asked.

Cullen seemed startled by the question, pulling his hand away from her face.  “What?  This?  You?  No, this is wonderful –”

“I meant, Varric calling you Curly,” Namira said, realizing the question had been rather abrupt.   “It always seemed a bit odd to me.  Your hair is wavy, but no more so than mine.”

“Ah,” said Cullen delicately.  A dull red flush began to creep up his neck.  “That, ah, was a nickname from our time in Kirkwall.”

“So what’s the story?  All of Varric’s nicknames have a story.”  She adjusted herself in his lap, sitting up straighter to watch his sheepish reaction, and continued idly stroking his hair.

“There’s nothing much to it.  It’s only that my hair used to look rather different, that’s all,” said Cullen matter-of-factly, but the flush crept higher.  

Namira gave him an appraising look, reaching back up to ruffle his hair so that it stood up in several different directions.  “How so?  It’s difficult to imagine your hair any other way.  Did you have braids?  Long flowing locks?  A ponytail?  Oh!  Please tell me you had a shaved head.  You and Solas might have been twins!”  She dropped her hand and loosely draped her arms over his shoulders, knitting her fingers together behind his neck, hands resting on his fur mantle.

The horrified look on his face sent her into giggles.  “Of course not!” he said.  “Besides, bald wouldn’t make much sense for a nickname of  _Curly_ , now would it?  If you must know, when left to its own devices, my hair is an impenetrable maze of ringlets.  I’ve broken more than one comb trying to do battle with it,” he said gruffly, looking over her shoulder into the distance and pretending to ignore her gleeful expression.  “Recently I found a new way of managing its… willfulness, and it’s been much better behaved.  But Varric shall never let me live it down.”

“Of course not,” said Namira, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head, his hair tickling her lips.  “ _Curly_.”

“Oh, please don’t,” Cullen groaned.  “Let me keep _some_  of my dignity.”

He shifted slightly.

That was all it took.

The treacherous Orlesian wicker gave no squeak, no sound to warn them.  It simply was there one moment, holding both of them on its spindly legs; and then the next it was utterly obliterated, wicker fibers splintering and disintegrating into nothing, the chair collapsing utterly beneath them.  There was no time to make a sound or try to escape their fate; instead, Cullen and Namira smacked straight into the stone floor with a teeth-rattling  _thud_ , clutching each other for dear life.

They stared at each other, the breath knocked out of them.  For a moment neither of them said anything, too stunned to do anything but take in the wicker shrapnel all around them.  Their chests rose and fell with deep, astonished breaths.

Finally Namira looked soulfully into his eyes, laying one hand gently on his cheek before she spoke.  

“You were saying something about dignity?”

And that was how she got Commander Cullen Rutherford, general of the Inquisition’s forces, warrior and battlemaster, to laugh on her bedroom floor until he cried.

When at last their laughter subsided, they had ended up rolling onto their backs amid the wicker wreckage, their faces inches apart, their hands clasped.  Tears still slicked the corners of Cullen’s eyes, and Namira worked hard to catch her breath.  Her free hand idly played with some of the wicker pieces, and she picked one up, feeling a bit of paper attached to the wicker.

“Look at this,” she said weakly, all the laughter having tired her out.  She pulled at the little strip of paper and held it down to her face, squinting.  In a fine, elegant script was a tiny message.  She read it aloud.  “ _For decorative use only_.”  She paused.  “Orlais strikes again!”

“Are you quite serious?  They truly sent you chairs that can’t be sat in?” Cullen snorted.  “I should have known.”

“To be fair, things might have been fine if someone wasn’t wearing such heavy armor,” said Namira pointedly.  “When am I going to see you out of it, hmm?”

“Out of it?” asked Cullen in a strangled voice, letting go of her hand and propping himself up on his elbow to gape at her.  “Maker’s breath, surely you don’t want to  _already_  – I mean – not that I haven’t thought – but so soon?  I –”

“No!” yelped Namira.  “No, that’s not what I meant – not that I would mind thinking about it – but not yet, I mean, maybe someday – a long time from now – but I don’t mean _too_  long –”  She swallowed, shaking her head.  “Right.  I meant I’d like to see you wear regular clothes without armor once in a while, that’s all.  Not… total nudity.  At least not quite this early on.”  She giggled.  “Oh, we’re good at this, aren’t we?”

Cullen laughed, the tension breaking.  He leaned down and kissed her quickly on the lips.  “I am very out of practice, I’m afraid.  And I had little opportunity to become especially skilled in things of this nature. The Order was not exactly an effective courting service.”

“I’m hopeless.  Dalish typically pick a potential partner fairly early on, and don’t usually deviate unless there’s a massive personality conflict between the betrothed,” said Namira.  “So there’s courtship, but it’s usually for keeps.  There was never anyone back home I felt a connection to that way, and I was always deep in my studies as First, so I haven’t even done  _this_  much with anyone before.”  She gave him a lopsided smile.  “I hope you don’t mind my having no idea what I’m doing.”

“Of course not,” Cullen said, smiling back at her.  “We’ll figure things out together.”

“Together,” Namira said, musing.  “I like the way that sounds.”  She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees.  She leaned back toward him and said conspiratorially, “What do you think?  Shall we try and break the other one?  They’re supposed to be a matching set.”

Cullen looked to the remaining chair, then back to her.  “I think it sounds a fine idea, Inquisitor.”  

They scrambled to their feet and raced to the other chair.  It took only a few minutes of team effort, punctuated by much kissing and laughter, before the other chair’s death knell tolled and it was brought splintering down.  They lay there, reveling in their victory.  It wasn’t until the sun set and the room was plunged into darkness that they noticed how much time had passed, talking and joking, holding hands and kissing.  

Reluctantly Cullen mentioned he still had work to attend to, and Namira remembered she needed to pack for another journey to the Hinterlands tomorrow.  But she walked him down the stairs, standing two steps taller than him so that they could kiss without one having to bend down and the other having to crane their head upward.

“I’ll write you every night,” Namira said, enjoying the way she could look into his eyes at this height.  

“And I’ll do the same,” said Cullen, kissing her again, holding her hands in his.  “Leliana owes me a few favors; she will hopefully not ask too closely about my use of her ravens.”

“You know the others will tease us mercilessly once this comes out in the open,” said Namira.  “Which will probably be as soon as I start writing letters every night at camp.  Varric won’t leave  _that_  alone, you can count on it.”

Cullen groaned, but it was without any real dismay.  “I expect they will indeed be merciless,” he said.  “Still, it shall be worth it.”  He kissed her once more.  “Goodnight… Namira.”

She realized something.  “That’s the first time you’ve used my first name,” she said.  “It’s always been Inquisitor, or Herald, before.”

“I shall be saying it far more often,” he said softly.  “I’ve wanted to use it long before now – it’s such a lovely name.”

“I like the way you say it,” she said, just as softly.  She squeezed his hands.  “Goodnight, Cullen.”  She kissed him one more time, and reluctantly he let go of her hands.

“I’ll be there to see you off in the morning, Namira.  Good night,” said Cullen once more, and he took the door handle, letting himself out.  She watched him go from the doorway.  When he reached the door to the main hall he glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her once more before exiting.

Namira closed the door to her quarters, not bothering to fight the huge grin stealing over her face.  She suspected that her distraction would last all night… and, judging by how fluttery she felt, it would last  _well_  into the Hinterlands.

Somehow, she didn’t mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie, this happened to me early on in my relationship with my fiance and it was friggin' hilarious. Sorry, sweetie, for stealing that moment to use in fanfic. XD


End file.
